"Tummy PC" - How to wear your H/PC

I found a quaint but good idea over at the Acceleration Studies Foundation for anyone who wants to take their H/PC onto another level.

This (as orientated towards in the article) I can see as being a fantastic aid to doctors or field researchers. It may look a little... touristy. That said the idea is simple.

The article is a little bias towards MobilePro's, with the first hp devices arriving in 1997, the article is a little off on some points.

Have a read:
http://www.accelerating.org/articles/tummypc.html

What do you all think?
Would you wear your clamshell?

I do have one point that I am compelled to bring up here... Who's HPC:Factor???


Someone send for my layers... and bring me something for my throbbing temple!

It wouldn't work for me. I am a bit shortsighted

BTW; is MP 700 realy upgradeable to Net 4.2?

No, only the 900 can be upgraded to CE4.

LOL! and this is my 100th post !!!!!!!!!!!!

i haven't read the entire article but, first, i don't wanna glue things to the back of my jornada. second, i don't know anyone that can manufacture that nylon bag for me. third, i kind of like the idea because i can strap the J to my waiste and listen to mp3 while i ride my bike instead of having to stop and get the J out of the backpack everytime i wanted to rewind or fast forward.

So whose site is this anyway?

Interesting point about size, as the Jornada is just his ideal size, except that it has a smaller keyboard of course.

I wouldn't want something like that. But I suppose if someone needs to type while standing, this is an excellent solution. Think of the alternative... thumbboard, stylus, etc.

About the music thing... I thought you could remap the front buttons with some utility, altho there's only 3 buttons to map I never tried, cause I use the Smartphone for music too (hey what if the phone rings, you know...)

I think that we are all missing an important point; I've overlooked it myself. One more condition must be met in order to use Tummy PC: blind typing. How many of you can do this?

I am not sure any more whether the article was real or a joke It is not April 1st, but anyway... Many "facts" in the article wouldn't pass the cross examination.

I take it that you can't touch type then vjurkas?

I can, and I would summise that to be 'blind typing'. However you would be looking down on the device and would get perspective on the keyboard, if not the key decals themselves (depends on your posture).

One thing that may be a problem is it certainly isn't ergonomic. You'll be needing a good chiropractor for your disjointed neck me thinks.

Agreed on the 'facts' problem.

At first, I thought this article was going to make jokes about how I decided to tote my J 680.

For years, I have rejected the idea of paying $100 or more for a laptop or notebook (lug-about desktop PC) case. I never paid more than $20 or $30 for my cases and they were good enough that including one when I sold my year-old lug-a-bouts, helped sell them quick. {Yes, I bought one every year. My buying tactics & 33% off from business deduction allowed me to sell them for about what I had in them. Otherwise, I would never have bought a new notebook each year. }

When I got my 680, there was no way I was going to lay out half my buy price for a case! My wife made me a nice, immitation leather "wallet" in 15 minutes (using the bubble pack it shipped in for a quick pattern). I place the "wallet" cased 680 in a imitation leather hip pack I bought from Harriet Carter for $9.00. Total price? $11.00 but actually the hip sack is recycled. It was purchased for a particular use that ended five years ago. A square yard of high quality, padded immitation leather cost $6.95 a square yard, enough to make several "wallets".

I have waged something of a "battle" with academia since I resigned in disgust 20-plus years ago (and never looked back), so I enjoy taking along my 680, hands free, to University libraries. I no longer take a notebook. Students cannot restrain themselves from asking me about the 680. They cannot believe they exist. I carry copies of a detailed review of the 680/90 & hand it to curious students. Professors look but are too arrogant to ask me about it. Asian students wait until they see me in the cafeteria. I have to make Sat or Sun early AM, when Asian students dominate, my library day now. That way I am interrupted only in the cafeteria.

Anyone interested in living well cheap consult the master: Amy Dacyczyn, "The Tightwad Gazette". If you buy a copy, be thrifty get it at half.ebay.com for $6.00 or less.

I'm with BruisedQ regarding the price of cases. I cannot quite justify paying more than half the price of the device it is supposed to protect. But ... taking into consideration that the price of the device is very lower due to it being old stock, it sometimes makes sense.

Granted, if like BruisedQ, you have a nice wife with nifty hands to help you make nice wallets, then you may be better off so. Otherwise, you can also try some of the book pouches. I saw some at Walmart that were marketed for bibles and the likes. It happens to fit a HPC quite nicely! Some even have a mini lamp/light built in so you can read the book. With the HPC, you can use that to light up the keyboard ala ThinkLight! And most goes for around $10~$15.

Perhaps I just paid that much for my Jornada... but the cost of my shoulder bag plus a foam slip was about 1/10th the price of the device. Oh, and both the device and the bagging were brand new, when I bought them about half a year ago.

After my own heart Snappy!

I bought several high quality back pack design licensed cases for GameBoy Advanced SP for a dollar each, (for our Casio (PDA) BE300s) at Big Lots . They fit perfectly, get good protection and there are pockets to store things.

I only use the "wallets" my wife makes for Handhelds to keep them clean and provide some protection. I carry them in the "wallet" in a hip sack. Today, I found what I was looking for at a Family Dollar. A 72 CD hard case for $5.00...I was going to cut out the CD "pages" until I realized the 680 will sit well and snug between them and they provide good padding. I took bright blue duct tape and taped most of the "pages" down. I left some loose so I can put floppies in them to save files obtainable only at the library. No more hand written notes & no more waiting for my library print jobs to que.

Someday, a company will figure out that a practical hand scanner can be made from off the shelf components. Logitec still makes the great handheld scanners they made for Commodores, Apples & PCs but they haven't changed them. You must tail them to a notebook PC in order to operated them. There is enough room in the scanner and current tiny, energy efficient components can be put in them to make them independent devices. I have spoken to a few Logitect techs about it but no go. They think as lame as pen scanners maybe, people will not go for something as "big" as a hand scanner. I got no where arguing that fold-up PDA keyboards are bigger, yet a few million people bought into lugging one along with their PDA so they could input text data at a productivity speed. I said: "Aren't you amused at the people who paid $200 to $300 for a PDA and then paid $89 to $100 for a fold up keyboard so they could do something with them?"

To be a corporate tech, I think you must be able to show much respect to your bosses and have no vision, or you will be frustrated and disgruntled!

Interesting. Back in 1998-1999 or so, I used to do this with an HP 360LX of mine, using a belt pouch that was set up for it.

I did this with my Motorola accompli for two way text, and email messages, as for cases, I bought a little hip pouch about a year ago that I never used. Turns out it is the perfect size for the Jornada, and has pockets for accessories.

Ever heard of the Xircom Rex 6000, the last of the Xircom micro PDA line? Intel dropped the micro line in 2001. I got one free to review a year before they hit the streets. I still have it. It is an entire PDA in a PCMCIA card. 2 MB flash ram PDA & it has a speaker. Some enthusiasts managed to play music through them! Someone ever wrote a touch screen played music keyboard program for Rex. The tiny speaker doesn't get very loud but it sounds better that the J680 speaker!

The Rex 6000 was poorly marketed and the documentation was terrible. There is still a UK site up that has free software on it. As a joke, I installed freecell on mine last week (for my wife as a joke) but it turned out to be good. Now my wife has it! This thing is about three stacked credit cards and runs six months with two CR2016 button cells ($2.99 each at Kroger).

Owners were able to buy leather cases for the Rex. My wife made me one from $1.00 worth of the imitation leather left over from making 680e and 3 BE 300 "wallet" cases.

It is amazing that the tiny, grey screen REX listed at $189.00... Sure am glad I got mine free. I would never pay more than $30 for it, as cool as the PIM micro PDA may be!



Edited by bruisedquasar 2005-03-16 4:05 PM